I finally made it to Malawi! - Part 2

All things considered, I felt pretty good after 1 and 1/2 days of travel.  I walk out of the airport, Kate is waiting for me, haven't seen her in almost seven months, feeling good.  Kate had borrowed her friend Emma's car (she's a teacher from Kingston, Ontario, and teaches year 6 at Bishop Mackenzie with Kate- more on Emma another time), and expertly drove us about 30 minutes from the airport to our home.  This, of course, is a former British colony so all driving is done on the left (wrong?) side of the rode.  Takes more than a little while to reprogram the brain on this one.  We pull up to our new place and head in...

Pretty tough to beat that! A beautiful home, surrounded by lush vegetation and a beautiful walkway to the front door. We live near Kate's school, in a compound that's referred to as Kotecha.  Emma lives in Flat 4, Joe (a secondary teacher from Indiana) lives in Flat 1, and Dan (a middle school teacher from Oakland) lives in Flat 2.  (The majority of the teachers at Bishop Mackenzie are not from the U.S., two just happen to live in the same compound) This is in addition to two local families that live on the grounds as well.  They are all lovely, and I will write more about them all in another post.

But wouldn't you know it, somebody was waiting for me in the house! Lucy!!!!

It's hard to overstate how much I missed the two ladies in my life.  I suppose a more eloquent writer than I could wax philosophically about the dynamics of being part of a long distance relationship, the stress that is put on your psyche when the constants in your life are turned upside down, about the challenge to stay level when your world is shifting from the safe and expected to the new and unknown....

All things considered, I had a great situation in Louisville after Kate left.  Shout out to Carlos Wood for letting me stay at his place during this transition.  I was surrounded by friends and colleagues (I would name them all, but based on an attempt at a recent Facebook post tagging my co-workers, I will obviously forget one or two or eleven of them) and work that I cared about. I can't speak for Kate, but I know she was focused on being in a new place, having work she cares about deeply, enjoying the adventure.  We both stayed busy, and I think that made the time apart much easier.  Either way, however, I'm glad that stretch is over. And now I'm here, in Lilongwe, with Kate (and Lucy), and I'm relieved to be past the tough part.

Back to the first day!  Kate had home made chicken noodle soup waiting for me, and we definitely shared a beer.  We also had birthday cake, for my 36th birthday two days before. Carrot cake, my favorite, she knows me well.

More than anything, I think we both just glanced out of the corner of our eyes at each other wondering if the other person was really there.

We took Lucy for a walk, and like any picture of a beautiful sunset, this one didn't even capture 1/10 of 1% of the scene, not to mention all the emotion that I was feeling looking at my first Malawi sunset.  Good thing I have a lot of extra time, learning how to use Adobe Photoshop needs to be on the list. Side note, I redid the header for the blog, and included a picture in the background of one of my favorite pics I've taken so far.  Full disclosure, it took me 1 and 1/2 hours to get that bad boy dialed in.  I laugh to think it would take someone who knew what was up probably 3 minutes, but I suppose that is a microcosm for many things that will happen here.  Learning new things, challenging yourself (even with the little things) is all part of the journey, the adventure if you will.

Like anything in a situation and place like this, it is very hard to put things about our new life into context when you talk to family and friends from home.  Our home is in a walled compound with the other people I talked about above.

This is on a street where every home is behind a wall, with a gate, and I believe all have security personnel.  We also have an alarm on our house, with bars on the windows and a locked gate in front of our front door.  Yet I have yet to feel unsafe here, once.  Like any foreign and exotic place, using your head goes a long way to keeping yourself safe, and the people here are so friendly. Again, Kate was here for seven months on her own and traveled quite a few times alone.  She never had any problems with her safety or security.  People (myself included) have stereotypes about Africa, how dangerous it may be, etc.  Yet, Malawi, the Warm Heart of Africa says more about the people here than anything

After we got back from our walk, I laid down and instantly fell into the type of sleep that only goes with exhaustion.  Luckily, Kate woke me up at 6:30 pm, to try and get me on the local schedule.  I slept in fits that first night.  Saturday was filled with more naps, Kate filling my stomach with her wonderful cooking, and Kate just generally taking care of me.  I needed it.

Saturday night, we took Lucy across town to Ben and Lilly's house.  They are two Americans that agreed to watch Lucy for the three days we had planned for travel.  Ben works as a consultant for UNICEF and Lilly is working for Partners in Health doing a study and implementation on breast cancer.  I have a feeling Kate and I will be spending more time with them (and actually are meeting them for Japanese food tonight! -yes, Lilongwe apparently has a Japanese restaurant, very excited)

When we got home from dropping Lucy off, I noticed this bad boy!!!!! I already posted this on Facebook, but how awesome is this.  A giant snail, and there are always six or eight of them, every night, right outside our door.  You have to be very careful as they are on the walk at times, as they seem to be traveling to whatever destination is waiting for them.

There are so many amazing creatures here.  Once I get a few more pics I will do an entire post just on that.  Chameleons, exotic birds, beautiful flora.  It is really a privilege and a joy to be able to see all of these things that my 10-year-old-self would have flipped out seeing.  And I am still flipping out, because they are awesome.  Look at that snail!

Sunday morning we took off for our three day holiday.  Unbeknownst to me when I booked my flight over, Kate had a 5 day weekend waiting, so she had planned to take advantage.

I didn't know there was going to be part 3 to this initial post, but Zomba Plateau is going to take a little more time and effort.  I am reading a book by Stephen King right now called "On Writing," and very early in the book he quotes a well known adage about writing: "Omit needless words."  Apparently writing efficiently, like everything else for me here in Malawi, is a work in progress.